“There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil,” Bill Gates wrote this summer. That’s quite an endorsement—and it gave a jolt of fame to Smil, a professor emeritus of environment and geography at the University of Manitoba. In a world of specialized intellectuals, Smil is an ambitious and astonishing polymath who swings for fences. His nearly three dozen books have analyzed the world’s biggest challenges—the future of energy, food production, and manufacturing—with nuance and detail. They’re among the most data-heavy books you’ll find, with a remarkable way of framing basic facts. (Sample nugget: Humans will consume 17 percent of what the biosphere produces this year.)
December 2013
Linotype documentary
Linotype: The Film
Watch free if you have Amazon Prime. If not $2.99 to rent or $5.99 to buy.
Odiferous Ejected Patron Sues Utah Library
After being asked to leave a Sugar House library because of his lack of hygiene, a Utah man is suing the Salt Lake City Library for $25,000 and he wants his library card re-activated. According to a lawsuit filed in 3rd District Court Wednesday, the man wrote that over the summer, he was banned from the public library at 2131 S. 1100 East by a librarian “who said that I smelled and I was unclean.”
The man wrote that the librarian was talking loudly with another man, and the duo then began “badgering” him while he was using a library computer. The man argued in court papers that the librarian and her friend “made up erroneous lies about [the plaintiff’s] conduct and behavior while in the library.”
The man wrote that he is suing on grounds of mental cruelty, defamation of character and lost wages — though, in another document asking to waive fees associated with filing the case, he wrote that he was unemployed.
According to the library’s rules of conduct, patrons who have offensive body odor or personal hygiene that interferes with other patrons’ ability to use the library will be asked to leave library grounds until the problem is corrected. No court date has been set in the case.
The man also filed a similar lawsuit against the City Creek Mall in July in federal court, asking for $100,000 in damages after he was kicked off the property for what he said were “ridiculous reasons,” such as sitting on planter boxes and picking up cigarettes out of an ashtray. That case has been dismissed, according to court records.
Dead-End Job: Librarian – Alternative Career: Nutritionist
Five dead-end jobs, and how to escape them
Why Avoid It: Nolin says that this is a dying occupation simply because information now is so readily devoured using technology. Plus, she says that federal funding for new libraries is basically non-existent, and job growth is expected to follow suit.
Why Nutritionist A Better Choice: “With our aging and waist-expanding population, the number of people who visit a nutritionist to help address health issues is exploding,” says Nolin.
A Happy Schoolroom Story
Via Twitter: Cecelia Larsen @celialarsen “in which a classroom library is destroyed by flood, and book bloggers help save the day”: #books
Read all about how volunteers helped restore a flooded classroom with new books at Cecilia Bedelia’s Blogspot. Nice to hear about people adding books to school libraries (instead of removing them).
Check out this partial list of titles donated to Ms. Larsen’s 9th Grade English classroom (Ms. Larsen is the author’s sister):
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach
Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
Mexican WhiteBoy by Matt de la Pena
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
White Cat by Holly Black
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
The Only Alien on the Planet by Kristen D. Randle
If you have any further suggestions of books that belong in a 9th grade classroom (for self-directed reading), please mention them in the comments. Ms. Larsen and I thank you!
Waterstones Response to Amazon’s Drone Delivery Plans — O.W.L.S.
Originally posted by Birdie — technical problems were causing embed not to work. She had the following comment with original post — Hilarious response by Waterstones to Amazon’s “Prime Air” concept of drone book delivery. Got to love the closing line.
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